Hawke offers advice on how to rescue Parliament

Both sides of politics should commit in the election campaign to putting forward issues that would be subject to a free vote in Parliament, to restore a “dangerous" collapse of voter faith in parliamentary democracy, former prime minister Bob Hawke said.

Addressing a reunion of journalists who reported on his government between 1983 and 1991, Mr Hawke said that while reminiscing about the past was enjoyable, the fourth estate had an important role to play in ensuring the standing of Parliament in the community was improved from levels that were “dangerous" for the country.

“The Parliament is regarded with increasing contempt and this is in part because the actual processes of the parliament are just a charade," he told the Saturday night dinner in Canberra.

“The decisions are basically made in the government party rooms and you go into the Parliament and have a debate about it, but the decision is basically already made. It’s one of the reasons I personally never found Parliament an interesting process."

The former ACTU industrial advocate observed that before entering Parliament he had been “used to the real processes of debate and argument in the arbitration commission where the quality of argument determined outcomes".

Parliament was now getting worse under both sides of politics, he said.

His proposal for improving the situation was that, in addition to party leaders making commitments on specific legislative programs and policy beliefs, they would say that “there are some issues on which we don’t pretend that we necessarily know all the right answers and that what we will do is to put into the Parliament draft legislation".

Under Mr Hawke’s proposal, the leaders would commit that “there will be no caucus meeting on either side and we, as a government, undertake that we will abide by the decision of the Parliament in a free and unfettered debate".

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“I believe that if that were to be done there would be an absolutely fundamental change in the attitude of the Australian people to the parliamentary process," Mr Hawke said.

“The whole process would not be treated with contempt, it would be treated with respect. Importantly, the relationship between members of Parliament and the electorate would be strengthened because the elected representatives would know that their electorate would know that they were making decisions themselves personally, not as directed by the party, so would be wanting to know directly what the electorate thought."

He used the debate about how to elect a president if Australia were to become a republic as an example. “There is a genuine debate about the issue of whether there should be a direct election of the president by the people or whether you should have that indirect method where nominations are put up through the Senate," he said.

“Let that be freely debated and the government abide by whatever the majority decision is."

A passionate Mr Hawke said the standing of Parliament was “not just something of passing interest to me".

“I think it is something that you in the media should pick up and try to press and push, because we run a great risk if we allow our democratic parliamentary process to become an object of ridicule and contempt.

“This is dangerous and I think we all have a responsibility – you in the media and those of us still indirectly or directly involved in politics – to address this issue."

The 83-year-old said it had been “an indescribable pride and pleasure to have the opportunity to lead this country for that period of time".

“I do believe together we were able to make this a better country but what we must be about is using our recollections of the past – the way we worked together, the political process and the fourth estate – remember from that, learn from that and apply the lessons of the past to how we can make this an even better country."

“We did together make it a better country in the 1980s in those good and exciting times I believe if we can work together we can make this great country even better."